Calif. boosts water deliveries to farms, cities

DON THOMPSON, Associated Press Writer

The deepest Sierra Nevada snowpack in four years let California water officials increase deliveries to farmers and cities on Tuesday, after three years of drought that have forced restrictions on water use.

The state Department of Water Resources, which provides water to 25 million Californians and 750,000 agricultural acres, increased this summer's water deliveries to 40 percent of the amount requested. That's up from a projected 30 percent allocation last month.

The federal Bureau of Reclamation made the same boost in water allocation Tuesday for the 36 agricultural water contractors it serves south of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Most other federal contractors, which include wildlife refuges and farms, cities and industrial users north of the delta, will receive all or most of the water they requested.

Most of California's massive and complex water-delivery system is a combination of state- and federally operated reservoirs and canals serving different users.

State water director Mark Cowin said the state will announce its final projection for state water users later this month. A Sierra snowpack that is 143 percent of normal for this time of year allowed water managers to promise more this year.

Even with the deeper snowpack, water managers remain cautious after several years of drought. Lake Oroville north of Sacramento, the state water system's main reservoir, is about 61 percent of its capacity, which is about three-quarters of normal for this time of year.

In addition, federal wildlife agencies have imposed pumping restrictions intended to protect fish in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, which means less water can be delivered to farmers and cities in Southern California, the San Joaquin Valley and San Francisco Bay area.

"That's going to be a big issue for us, the fact that the delta pumping has been restricted and will continue to be restricted," said Santa Clara Water District spokesman Marty Grimes. "We're still rebounding from three years of dry weather. That's another reason we're going to be continuing to urge conservation."

The district had imposed a 15 percent conservation requirement for much of the county of 1.8 million people that includes San Jose, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale and Cupertino. The county exceeded the goal with a 17 percent cut through March. With a larger allocation, the board is likely to consider switching from a mandatory to a voluntary water conservation program later this month, he said.

Farmers argue that water restrictions in the San Joaquin Valley, which is a major producer of fruits and vegetables, have caused hundreds of millions of dollars in crop losses from fallowed fields and jobless farmworkers.

The increased projections come too late for farmers who made spring planting decisions based on earlier estimates that they would receive less than 10 percent of their requests this year, said Westlands Water District spokeswoman Sarah Woolf.

"Whatever additional water we get is used for crops that are already in the ground," said Woolf, whose sprawling district irrigates 600,000 acres of Central Valley farmland. The increase means farmers will draw less groundwater from shrinking aquifers, she said.

A 10 percent water restriction has meant limiting outdoor watering to two days each week for nearly half the state's population, the 19 million customers served by Southern California's Metropolitan Water District. That, plus price incentives, brought a 15 percent drop in usage this winter, said district spokesman Jeff Kightlinger.

A 40 percent state allocation means the district can meet demand without tapping reservoirs.

"This really helps," he said. "We're not adding anything to our storage, but we're not pulling anything out either."